The Cardinals' charter flight from St. Louis to Boston was delayed more than five hours by a mechanical issue that kept the plane grounded. The team waited for the glitch to be fixed, and eventually had to consider getting a new plane to make their way here for Game 6 of the World Series.

The Cardinals boarded the flight before 1 p.m St. Louis time.

By 6 p.m. it had not left.

"We've been sitting on the plane here for a couple hours with some mechanical difficulties," manager Mike Matheny said in a quickly arranged conference call with a few members of the media already at Fenway Park. "There's another plane en route in case they can't get this one to where it needs to be. But right now everybody is just kind of waiting around and anticipating either this plane to get fixed or another one to show up, so we can get on our way."

The Cardinals were set to take off from St. Louis more than 90 minutes after they were scheduled to land in Boston.

The team did not have a workout scheduled for this afternoon at Fenway Park. Under lights, the Boston Red Sox did have a batting practice at the old ballpark.

Boston returns to Fenway ahead 3-2 in the best-of-seven championship. They have two games at home to win one. The Cardinals must win two games at Fenway to claim their 12th World Series title. The Cardinals have not gone on the road to win Games 6 and 7 of a World Series since 1934.

The Cardinals passed the time on the plane with their family. They had dinner available. Movies played, iPads were swiped, and kids were entertained somehow.